Laos begins to wow us

1.13.12
I'm not usually one for superstitions, but let's just say that the start of my trip happened to fit people's expectations for Friday the 13th. On the bus to HCMC I had a moment of panic when I thought that I had left my wallet back in my room. Fortunately, it was in my backpack, but my hands were shaking for a good while thereafter.

When I got to the bus station in HCMC I was immediately spotted by my newly dubbed 'xe-homie' (a xe om is a motorbike taxi). The first time he took me somewhere he wouldn't accept my bargain and I felt overcharged. The second time I didn't recognize him until it was too late, and our final bargain was once again too high. However, when we got to our destination he re-evaluated and charged me less than we had agreed upon. This time, he saw me and cried "my friend!" and gave me a very reasonable price to the airport.

Back to Friday the 13th drama. I am one million times thankful that I decided to get to the airport early and check in right away. After finally making it to the front of the unmoving line I was told that since I did not bring the credit card I used to purchase my ticket, I would have to cancel my original one and buy a new ticket. I was told that I could get a full refund on the original ticket, but that the new ticket would likely be more expensive. I had to leave the check-in line and go to the ticketing line. I waited there, found out that the price was actually the same, and almost went through an entire transaction and then was told that I could not use this card to make the purchase because it says "Capital One Customer" instead of my name on it. Sooo I had to leave that line, find the ATM two floors down, get enough cash to pay for the ticket, then go back upstairs and get back in line and try again. Third time's the charm, I guess. Then I had to go back to the check-in line. Finally, finally, all was well and Kelly and I were on our way to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.

I naively expected Laos to feel more or less the same as Vietnam. I mostly just figured that since Vietnam is so different from the US, a neighboring country should be equally different and therefore feel generally similar. Instead, my first night in Laos made me realize just how hard it will probably be to readjust to life outside of Vietnam. I naturally chose chopsticks over the fork, and couldn't leave my plate sitting on the table in front of me; I had to hold it up near my mouth. I missed eating out of a small bowl and I was comforted by the roll of toilet paper serving as napkins. I was perplexed as to what to do with my wadded up napkins since there was no trashcan under the table and the place was too nice for me to just drop it on the floor, as I would in Vietnam. Over dinner I enjoyed the acclaimed Lao Beer. Admittedly, the lager was not terribly inspiring, but the dark lager was a happy reminder that beer can actually taste like something.

1.14.12
The next day illuminated even more differences between Laos and Vietnam. Right away, the prevalence of cars and minimal presence of motorbikes was striking. Kelly and I found ourselves struggling to cross the street when it doesn't feel like live-action Frogger. Regularly spaced traffic lights, obedience of conventional traffic regulations, and ostensibly silent horns were further baffling.

We embarked on a guidebook-guided tour of the city. We passed by the Presidential Palace on the way to our first stop, Wat Si Saket (wats are Buddhist temple complexes). Wat Si Saket is known for being the oldest standing temple in Vientiane and for having thousands of Buddhas. As our first wat, it was particularly striking.

Central temple, with renowned murals inside

Our introduction to the vibrant and intricate wat decor

Large Buddhas and two small Buddhas in each alcove.

We stopped by a large market, but I missed being somewhere where I know the language (and where the exchange rate is more in my favor). Almost everyone spoke English, but things just feel better when you can speak to people in their own language. We passed by That Dam, the Black Stupa, which happened to be next to the US Embassy, and had lunch nearby.

I'm the tiny speck in the lower center

Next, we went to Wat In Paeng, perhaps the most breathtaking of the day's wats. It was here that I began to feel a profound appreciation for being in Laos. Jumping onto Kelly's Tet travel bandwagon brought me into the midst of a beautiful new world I could never have imagined. A young monk came right over to talk to me, perhaps intrigued by my vaguely Asian features. He took a shine to me, and was happy to both practice his English and tell us all about himself and monk life. He told us that he was from Luang Prabang, but that there is no monk college there, so he had to move to Vientiane. I learned that I really knew nothing about Buddhist monkhood. They wake up early to receive alms, pray, and clean. In the evening they meditate for about 15 minutes. In between they study and have a lot of free time that, as far as I can tell, they use like any normal person would. They say that you can be a monk in the morning and not a monk in the evening; you can join and leave monkhood as you wish, as many times as you want. He also helped us practice Lao numbers, because Kelly and I were both tired of not being able to say anything other than hello (sabaidee) and thank you (kop jai) in Lao.

View of the main temple and entrance to the wat

Top of the archway over the wat gate, seen above

Gilded, mosaiced, muraled temple entrance

From there we went to Wat Ong Teu Mahawihan, the monk's college, and Wat Haisok.

Wat Haisok, as seen from the top of a tower in the complex

And then, the surreal and serene went to another level. We had read about Wat Sok Pa Luang, which is known for its herbal sauna and has guided meditation on Saturday afternoon. As luck would have it, it was Saturday. We started with seated meditation, during which we were supposed to focus on the flow of our breath. I did realize how much my ears revealed the longer my eyes were closed. Next, we moved on to walking meditation, and I was much better at that. Everyone was walking slowly, with purpose and awareness, I suppose, but I felt like that would alter what I was supposed to be observing. The constant change of walking helped me keep my focus, and giving conscious attention to visual distractions felt valid within the objective of fully experiencing the moment. I watched a spider wrap its prey; I walked on different surfaces to note the differences; I walked in circles on the sand to see how my footsteps came to overlay on each other. Then we went back to sitting. My mindfulness was more established by then, and it was easier this time around. I observed the erratic swarm of my thoughts, how one always rushed in to fill the void I tried to create. After that we took on the sauna. You might ask why one would choose to enter a steam bath when it could be said that the last five months of my life have been an unending steam bath, and I asked myself the same question. However, once I entered the wooden hut and breathed in the cloud of tea, I had to admit that it felt good. After a few ins and outs in the sauna, we decided it was time for our massage. Cue the best massage of my life (1 of 2 ever, but still).

The night wasn't over yet. We went to a night market for some authentic Lao food, and chose spring rolls, fried spring rolls, and big balls of rice that get broken up and mixed with lemon juice and herbs. We swung by Pha That Luang, the national symbol of Laos. After that we discovered that by that time of night it wasn't so easy to get tuk-tuks, the default mode of public/tourist transportation. Suddenly our meager Vietnamese abilities felt like a treasure trove compared to our nonexistent knowledge of Lao. We decided to give it a shot and tried to ask a woman for help, in English. To our surprise and delight, she informed us that she was Vietnamese. Communication! Success! She couldn't really tell us anything other than that we were up a creek, but some time after starting the walk back to the hotel we managed to hail a passing tuk-tuk and make it home.

not so foreign

Rice plate. We asked for 'just a little spicy' and got about six peppers each.

Rice balls. Each one turns into a rice plate as seen above.

Pha That Luan

1.15.12
Today was our last day in Vientiane, so we tried to get around to the last few things on our list. We rented bikes (yes, I biked!) to expedite our commute to Patuxay, the victory arch. Despite the self-deprecating sign saying that it is "a huge structure resembling the Arc de Triomph" that, "from a closer distance, it appears less impressive, like a monster of concrete," it was a sight worth seeing. Seven stories up, the top provided a great view of the city.

Patuxay

View of the plaza below

After that we met up with Leslie and John, two ETAs teaching in Laos, for lunch. It was great to meet new people, trade stories, find differences and similarities, and get an insight into Lao culture. They also introduced us to a new dish, tam mak hung, a papaya salad. They also gave us advice about what to make our next and final stop. Off to buddha park we went.

Papaya salad

Fulbrighters

We surrendered our bikes and took a tuk-tuk the 20-odd kilometers out of town. The long, bumpy, hair-tangling, dust-coating ride took us past the Lao-Thai friendship bridge and the Lao Beer Brewery. We also zipped past innumerable wats that made us wish we had more time to explore. Buddha park itself was a unique sight to behold. It was built in the 1950s and is full of Hindu and Buddhist statues made to look ancient. Though it houses a small temple, it is mostly a photo-op playground for locals and tourists. 

On the tuk-tuk

View of Thailand across the Mekong

Not pictured: brewery fragrance

Buddha park

Chilling on the most iconic of the statues

Clearly, I needed a picture on the cricket statue

In the evening we went to the night market, and even though we didn't do much shopping we made a grand discovery. The best thing since sliced bread: grilled sticky rice on a stick. It was like a hot, savory, fried rice popsicle. We had to go back for another. We also got to try Lao Beer Gold, the third of the three Lao Beers.

Pure genius

Encoded

Not much to report today. I taught Listening 2 in the afternoon, but the most exciting part of my day was when Trang and I exchanged a (short) series of messages entirely in Vietnamese. She used that texting code I've mentioned in the past. It probably would have been easier for me to recognize the words without w's and s's and x's and f's and whatnot mixed into each word to indicate tones and special characters, especially since I still haven't really internalized the tones that go with all the words I know (though of course tones are crucial), but I guess it made for good practice in that regard. Here's an example of one of her texts:

Dduwowcj rooif. Xe muwowif mootj giowf ba muwowi. :-) 

as if normal Vietnamese weren't hard enough. But like I said, it's good practice. If you're curious, it means, more or less, "Correct. Bus at 11:30."

And what is that bus for? Laos tomorrow! Our plans are pretty loose, but I do know there is a 10-hour bus ride in store for me at some point during the week. Can I look forward to more roosters on the bus? Pigs? You'll be sure to hear about it when I get back.

Down, then up

1.10.12
I wasn't going to write about this, but then today happened. A few days ago I had an uncomfortable realization: I wouldn't mind if this were over. That doesn't mean that I actively want to leave, just that if my time in Vietnam were up, I'd be ready. Maybe you could say that the honeymoon period is over. As exciting as it may sound to be living in a faraway country, I'm just living. I'm just living somewhere where I am incapable of communicating more than a few basic needs, somewhere where I often feel like a child, somewhere where I too often feel alone, and when you put it that way it doesn't sound exciting or enticing at all.

I know there are 500 reasons why being here is great. Every other day, those are the reasons that color my perspective. But today just wasn't one of those days. All of my insecurities and shortcomings that manifest themselves in how I tackle daily life came to the surface.

After writing the above, I nursed myself with spoonfuls of refried black beans the same way tv women nurse their emotions with a pint of ice cream. And then it was time to put on a smile and go to a fair in town. That turned out to be just what I needed. From what I had been told, I was expecting to meet administrators with varying levels of English fluency. Instead, I met a pair of students and a few of my close co-workers. Strolling through the fair, which looked more like a short-term market with freebies, with my students made me feel like I had friends. It gave me encouragement to rededicate myself to establishing social connections, rather than always trying to be self-sufficient.

At the fair/market

From the market we went out to dinner and Trang joined us. It was a celebratory meal to 'cover the old year'. I'm not really sure what that meant, and Trang said she wasn't really able to explain. Either way, the food was great. My stomach had been feeling a little upset and I was worried I wouldn't be able to partake in the meal with my usual gusto, but I think it turned out that I was just hungry. As soon as I started eating, I felt way better. The standout part of the meal was a tofu dish. (I NEVER thought I'd say that!) I very reluctantly accepted the first morsel and (after accidentally putting way too much hot sauce on that one) ended up heaping them into my bowl. It was crunchy and savory on the outside and soft and almost melt-in-your-mouth-y on the inside. It helped that it was topped with green onions and some sort of shredded meat. By the end of the night I was feeling much happier.

Magical tofu on the left

1.11.12
The morning started with Trang and pho and Vietnamese lessons. I asked how to ask questions, and I feel like I'm finally back in the Vietnamese-learning saddle. I am learning all kinds of useful things, and my tonal indiscretions lead me to learn slightly less useful, less appropriate, but more hilarious words. Hồi nào means when; hôi means smelly. Đi means to go; đĩ means whore. Thành công means successful; cống means sewer pipe. If I mess that last one up, instead of wishing someone a successful new year, I'll be wishing them a sewagey one.

We also discussed proper behavior for Tet, which starts next week. It seems that there are innumerable social blunders that one can commit at this time, and any such blunder will doom someone's fortunes for the rest of the coming year. This means that I am somewhat apprehensive and Trang, as my cultural encyclopedia, is subject to my frequent interrogations about whether x or y will result in poor health or bankruptcy for my hosts. Both of us are a little stressed. Here are some examples of Tet superstitions:

• If you are unsuccessful, unmarried, or have a 'bad name' you are unwelcome at people's houses during Tet, because you bring bad luck with you. This begs the question, why would you ever give your child a bad name? They'll be ostracized every year.
• Red and other warm colors are lucky. You should dress accordingly.
• It is normal to give fruit to someone who invites you to their house during Tet holiday. I asked if tangerines would be ok, thinking that their coloring might be suitable. Wrong. Tangerines are sour, so I'd be bringing my hosts a sour new year.
• Watermelons are very popular during Tet because they are red inside. However, they should be round, not ovoid, because circles are 'more perfect'. The household will have a ceremonious halving of the watermelon to see what it is like inside. If you chose a bad watermelon, guess what that means for your year.
• The first animal sound you hear after midnight is an indication of the year to come. If you hear a rooster or a chicken you will be scratching out a living and working hard. If you hear a pig you will have a comfortable, lazy year.

This afternoon I taught the Spotlight on the USA class. This is maybe the class I'm most excited about because I feel like I have the most freedom (and the most expertise). I feel like this is my opportunity to feel like a real teacher and not just an activities coordinator. The last time I taught this class, two weeks ago, I told the students that I expect them to read the chapter ahead of time, and that I'd be giving reading quizzes at the start of each class. I was a little hesitant to give a quiz today because I worried that they might have forgotten, but then I realized that I gave them fair warning and that my job is to teach, not coddle.

In my last post I wrote about cheating. Woooh, boy. Today I really got to see how bad it is. I thought that if I told them what to do and what not to do that would be enough, but it wasn't. I had to say 'no talking' so often and so many times it felt like a mantra. I even stood in their midst, instead of up at my desk, to enforce the point. That helped a little, but not enough. I went back to my desk and used the seating chart to keep track of every person I heard talking or saw looking at someone else's paper. It was a little discouraging, but it also helped me appreciate the students who weren't cheating. If the behavioral signs weren't enough, the rash of tests stating that Benjamin Franklin was the 3rd president of the US just help to make the problem even more apparent. I realized that next class I'll have to spend time discussing what I consider cheating and what the consequences are.

Other than that, class went pretty well. I played American music during the break, which my students seemed very happy about. I'll try to remember to do that every week.


P.S. This seems like a good time to mention that I'll be in Laos for a week, starting on Friday.

Teaching, learning

Mr. Luan told me that you had pain in your tooth and had it picked last week. How are you doing now? Mr. Luan told me that you are ok now. I hope you will recover soon because picking up the tooth makes you very painful and tired. - Email from a concerned associate

So, I had to resume the responsibilities that grant me this life in Vietnam, and start teaching again. I was a little nervous; it's been a while, and it was also my first time teaching oral translation. I wasn't sure how things would go.

Oral translation went well, or well enough. I observed the class a few weeks ago, back when Elliot was still here. The main thing I gathered is that students seem terrified of the very notion of oral translation, and understandably so. It requires excellent listening comprehension, which most of them struggle with, and enough knowledge of both languages to re-express something correctly in the target language. My main goal today, as always, was boosting confidence. I wanted to show them that they can do this. We started by playing telephone, with a twist. I would give the first person a sentence in English, they'd mentally translate and whisper in Vietnamese to the next person, who would then whisper it in English to the next person, and so on. It took a few run-throughs to get them to actually switch back and forth, but it worked eventually.

Our next activity was translating stories. I wrote four ten-sentence stories and put the students into four groups of ten. Each student in each group was responsible for translating one sentence from a story. Another group had the answers, and was responsible for helping me evaluate their Vietnamese. Two groups translated stories from Vietnamese into English and two translated from English into Vietnamese. Trang, who normally teaches this class, provided me with written translations ahead of time. My intent for this activity was to show students that a)they are perfectly capable of translating one sentence and b) if you can translate one sentence you can translate something longer, because you take oral translation one sentence at a time. In some ways, it went great. The students' translations were above and beyond my expectations -- sometimes even translating sentences word for word as I had translated them -- and then I started getting suspicious. I was worried that they had gotten the translations from their counterpart teams over the break. Vietnamese students have quite a reputation for cheating, but I didn't want to accuse them or make them feel like I didn't think they were capable of doing well on their own. My solution: I had the translating group come to the front of the class, so they couldn't read (or not) answers off.

A student volunteer read the Vietnamese stories for others to translate into English

After translation I taught speaking to the second years. Today's topic was 'family values', and they had a worksheet with a list of past and current western family values. One of values on the list was 'A wife should obey her husband'. After some other activities, I took the class outside. I tried to have them do an agree/disagree gradient; students were to position themselves on a line between two trees, moving closer to one or another depending on how much they agreed with a family value. When we got to 'a wife should obey her husband,' I was especially curious about how they would respond. To be honest, given past experiences, I was half-expecting several students to agree. To my delight, almost all of them completely disagreed and the others mostly disagreed. Men and women are equal, they all said. How that equality may (or may not) manifest itself is another matter.

Wives should obey their husbands -- agree or disagree?

Tonight I had my first Vietnamese lesson in five zillion years. From now on, Trang and I will be conducting informal lessons over dinner and at cafes. I learned a whole slew of body parts, which on one hand were very logical and on the other hand showed me that Vietnamese can be quite illogical.
The words for arm (cánh tay), hand (bàn tay), and finger (ngón tay) share a root word that is switched out with another root word (chân) for leg, foot, and toe. Logical. Illogical: the two words that make up knee (dầu gối) are the words for head and pillow. Maybe, maybe I could see a knee being shaped like a head, but it is definitely not pillow-like. Other fun and perhaps slightly less ill-fitting word combinations are bắp chuối and mắt cá. Literally, the first means banana flower and the second means fish eye (except the word orders are reversed). As body parts they mean calf and ankle, respectively. I have a whole new way of looking at my ankle.

When I got back home there was this six-legged spider outside my door.

Day in the dark

"It is wise for you to choose QINLE QLED SUPER CAPACITY SUPER BRIGHT AND MULTIPLE FUNCTION PORTABLE TORCH for its cherishing and much pretty quality could let you feel more convenient whether at your workshop and family or at your studying and traveling.In order to easily for you to use it,pleaseread following instruction carefully before using." - English translation on my flashlight's packaging

I woke up to no electricity. And it stayed that way until 630pm. On the one hand, the absence of computer and TV helped me do all those things I never get around to because I'm glued to one or the other. My day felt more productive because my filler activities were more diverse and less ethereal; reading, drawing, cleaning, and crocheting feel more real than browsing the internet. It really wasn't so bad until it got dark, and I was playing games on my kindle with a mega LED flashlight nestled on my shoulder, wondering how long I'd be sitting in the dark.

Tomorrow I start teaching again -- sort of. It feels like forever since I have had a full schedule. Mid-November is pretty far from early January. But, I just have to get through this week. By the end of Thursday I'll be on Tet (lunar new year) holiday for two weeks. After that, my schedule will be reshuffled once more and I'll have to find the rhythm all over again.

Who needs ornaments when you've got oranges?

Yesterday morning we were going to go visit an ornamental tree village. I'd been informed of this mini-trip several days ago, and ever since I'd been curious about what such a thing would look like. I thought perhaps it would be somewhere full of topiaries. It was a long ride and an early start. You know you've been in Vietnam a good while when you almost feel comfortable enough to fall asleep on the back of a motorbike. It turned out that 'ornamental tree village' mostly meant part of the province where many people grow decorative plants, especially now that Tet (Vietnamese new year) is fast approaching. Conveniently, one such establishment was literally next door to Kim Long's parents' house. This particular place grows small kumquat trees for several months, and then wires them all together into these conical shapes in big pots. If properly cared for, they last up to two months. But, most of the time they are discarded right after Tet. This sounded somewhat wasteful to me, but then I thought about our Christmas tree practices.

You know it's a scary bridge when Vietnamese people
dismount to walk their motorbikes across

Just the usual spiders between powerlines

$250 ornamental tree

After our tour of the neighborhood, we came back to the house and helped finish the prep work for our 10am lunch. Spring rolls were being rolled, and I managed to hold my own in the rolling. All the women were in the kitchen, and even though everyone was speaking Vietnamese, I didn't feel left out. Soon it was time to feast. Soup, our fried spring rolls, pork and green and white vermicelli, curry, and salad.

And, as always, there was even more than this

The night before it hadn't slept well, and after all that food there was a hammock calling my name. I didn't want to be rude, but when I confided my sleepiness in Trang she insisted that I go to the hammock. Two hours later...
I woke up a couple times but, as I was still laying in the hammock, I just kept falling back to sleep. Finally, I got myself out of that sleep contraption and soon after it was time to go. On the way back we took a long detour to look at more decorative plants on the way home. It certainly was scenic, but it was also almost an hour and a half on the back of a motorbike, on bumpy dirt roads, in the heat of the day.

Going back

12.30
We left Phu Quoc for Saigon, this time spending less than an hour in transit, thanks to the magic of airplanes. Our afternoon was largely uneventful, other than dinner. I took Elliot to try banh can, one of my favorite dishes in Saigon. I only know how to get there by way of somewhere else, but I thought I had figured out the address so that we could walk there directly. Unfortunately, the address I found was completely wrong. Fortunately, I managed to get us there anyway, making only one wrong turn in the process. (If Elliot is telling this story, he will insist that it was more than one wrong turn, but that is false.)

12.31
I saw a motorbike with six people on it when we were on the way to the War Remnants museum. My record thus far! I had chosen not to go to the museum, previously, and I was a little apprehensive about this visit. I envisioned an emotionally dark and gut-wrenching experience. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but I also exercised a lot of judgement in which exhibits I chose to see; some were just photos of victims of agent orange, for example. I spent the most time looking at a collection of international photojournalism from the war.

After lunch we headed to the Reunification Palace. On the way there, a Vietnamese man called out to Elliot to compliment his beard. At the palace we discovered that, for some reason, they had now removed all of the signs that tell you what each room is supposed to be, perhaps to make more people want to pay for a tour guide. While both the museum and the palace had a clear bias and agenda, Elliot found the historical video shown in the palace (during which I fell asleep, yet again, but not as early on, at least) to be the worst in that regard.

Looking out from the top of the palace

We went out for dinner with several other ETAs who were in town for New Year's, and rung in 2012 with the masses.

with the ETAs

Happy new year!

1.1.12
It was time for Elliot to go back to the U.S. I regret to report that our last meal in Vietnam was at a newly opened Burger King at the airport. I guess it was a good transition point.

Elliot packed light, unlike everyone else in front of him

time to say goobdye

When I left the airport I went to the dentist to investigate the toothache, and you already know what came of that. I was lucky that all of my fellow ETAs were still around, so saying goodbye to Elliot didn't leave me abruptly alone in the city. At night we saw many of the city's decadent new year's  decorations that were still up.

1.2.12
I had to wait until Tuesday to have the tooth extraction, so I had a leisurely day. I had a rich spinach lasagna for lunch and I realized that I might have a hard time re-adjusting to food in the US. In the afternoon I pursued some retail therapy.

1.3.12
It feels silly to call it surgery, even though I did get a couple stitches. The whole thing was pretty quick and easy. I only got a local anesthetic, and I was able to watch most of the procedure reflected in my dentist's goggles. I've heard so many stories of what comes afterward that I was expecting the worst, but I've been just fine. Just in case, I spent the day at the hotel. I was rewarded when I caught the last five regulation minutes of the Stanford-Oklahoma State bowl game. How I've missed football! Even though the nurse repeatedly urged me to 'stay on top of the pain killers,' and medicate before I felt pain, rather than after, I felt so fine that taking codeine just felt excessive. I didn't take any. I've pretty much felt fine to eat and all that this whole time, but I'm trying to be responsible and careful. No chipmunk face has developed.

This was taken today, the 5th, the day at which I should be at 'peak swelling'.
Do I look chipmunky to you?

1.4.12
I got back to Ben Tre with a feeling of deflating. Back to reality, back to the daily grind, back to being alone, back to not understanding the voices around me. But the reality is that reality isn't bad at all. At the mid-year conference we received letters we wrote to ourselves at the end of orientation in Hanoi. I was pretty sure my letter would just remind me of all the goals I have failed to reach (e.g. cook often, learn Vietnamese), and consequently was reluctant to read it. However, I found that what I wrote four months ago was well-worth reading. At this time of resolutions and new beginnings, I would do well to keep my words in mind:

I want to make a point of getting out of my room and letting people in. I want to be in people's lives outside of the classroom, and I want people in my life. I don't want to look back on my year and wish I'd done it differently. I don't want to hear other peoples stories and wish they were mine. I want to love my story.